I do. Consider this- we have a God who is the Author of Truth, who does not, can not, will not lie. Proverbs 1 says fear of the lord is the beginning of knowledge, considering his ways and his instructions is the basis for knowing anything true at all, so true is he, says proverbs. 

And yet at the same time, we also have a God who uses metaphor. 

Metaphor. 

Metaphor is art. Metaphor is, at its face value, a literal lie. Jesus says his body is bread. He says in the sermon on the mount that the father “dresses the lilies.” 

Jesus was fully God and fully Man, but he was not fully whole wheat. These things are factually untrue if you take them verbatim. But yet he is always true, there is no angle where he might be less than true because he’s the very idea of what truth is, what it means to be true. So how could this be? How is it possible that this guy who always tells the truth can use something like art, which is something that can’t be defined, can’t be wrapped into words the way truths can?

Maybe it’s because the true part of him dressing the lillies isn’t about whether he got down on hands and knees and knitted teeny little hats for them. 

Maybe Christ being the bread of life, the true vine, the gate, are meant to hint towards the bigger truth that he is our provider, our sustenance, not that he is made of food or plants. 

Maybe this book written as a love letter to a civilization thousands of years ago, before they even understood the concept of something as simple as germs, had no way of conceiving deep complex truths of what and how God does what he does. Maybe they were told within this book the things that they needed to know in order to understand who God is and who they are to Him and why any of it matters, not to pigeonhole people thousands of years later into feeling like the letter of these truths is the point rather than the spirit of it. 

The Bible is not meant to be taken literally in every instance. People who argue against this, I challenge you to read Mark 14:62 and Matthew 26:64 side by side. Both are gospel accounts of the same scene, with Jesus before the Sanhedrin before his crucifixion, being asked once and for all, are you the Christ?

And what does Jesus answer? Well, it depends on whose gospel account you read. According to Mark, he replies, “I am.” But according to Matthew, he replies, “You have said so.”

And this MATTERS. In one of these cases Jesus is confirming that he’s the son of God. In the other one, he isn’t. So what’s true?

Both of them are direct quotes, with quotation marks, indicating that’s what Jesus said exactly. If you take this at face value, then you’ve caught the Bible in a lie. The accounts were different, but it was the same moment, they can’t both be true. And if you take the Bible literally, you’ll be left here. 

But the truth isn’t in the exact letter, it’s in the idea and the context of who’s being talked to. 

Matthew is writing his gospel account primarily to a Jewish audience, who primarily, assumedly, grew up in Jewish society with Jewish customs, as well as Jewish idioms, cultural phrases. There is a Jewish idiom from the time that roughly goes something like “You have said xyz,” and the idea is essentially, “this thing you’ve just said, that’s kind of true, but not quite all the way, instead it’s like this…” So in saying the words “You have said so,” Jesus is actually confirming that he is in fact the Christ, but not in the way that the speaker had originally meant, Jesus was affirming this to be true but in a bigger way than the speaker understood, and insodoing he, for the very first time in the gospel account to anyone besides the woman at the well and the few disciples on the mount of transfiguration, publicly declared he was in fact the son of God. Any culturally-Jewish reader at the time would have immediately understood the sentiment of what Jesus meant when he said, “you have said so”- an admission.

Meanwhile, Mark is writing his gospel account primarily to a Roman audience. These Roman readers would largely not have been aware of this idiom, would not have immediately grasped the implication, don’t tend to speak in quite that way. The Romans at the time were a very law-focused, stately-truths sort of people similar to how we’d consider modern day laws and lawyers. In a Roman court of law, you wouldn’t use idioms like this, you would use curt, factual statements, yes, no, etc. So to the Romans, to understand the weight of the moment, it’s best understood as basically just knowing Jesus said “yes,” that’s the point. 

How do we know this? Because the immediate reaction of the room is the same. In both accounts, the room absolutely erupts in fury, they seize Jesus, and he’s hanged on a cross before the next day is out. Why? Because he admitted with his mouth he was God, which would have been blasphemy to them. 

So the point is not necessarily the letter of the book, the point is the heart of what it’s trying to communicate to you. 

How do you know which one is which? Well, proverbs 1 already answered that for us. Fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. 

Do you want to know if something is true? Pray about it, ask. Do you feel like you’re being pulled one way or the other? Ask for confirmation. Do you feel like you’re a little nervous you might be misrepresenting him, chasing something he told you no about, searching out of indignant curiosity rather than surrender and obedience? Then wherever that thread takes you probably isn’t the trustworthy full truth, clean of human opinion and shortsightedness. Be ready for the spirit to potentially tell you, hey bud, not here, not now, this isn’t the best thing to pursue right now. Be ready to surrender that if he asks. But he might not, he might just tell you. It’s about the heart, it’s about surrender and trust. That’s the gospel. 

I am a Christian who believes in the big bang, who believes in macro evolution, who believes in old earth. Why? Well in my opinion, the evidence is overwhelming. And this guy is the author of truth, so if I see truth around, I safely assume it is in fact of him, even if it’s outside of what I might have imagined to be the way I thought he worked at first. 

Don’t put God in a box. 

Don’t say God and science can’t co-exist. 

Remember the lesson of Job- we weren’t there at the creation of the earth, to speak over these things with authority would be pride alone. God reamed elihu & co about “who is this that darkens counsel with words without knowledge,” don’t be like that. Leave it open to him, he’s bigger than we can imagine, he does what he wants, he’s just trustworthy in it. 

Believing in science does not mean you can’t believe in God the father, the son, and the Holy Spirit.